Dani,
Ref your response 1997 to my post 1982.
If there had been a technical/mechanical problem then Airbus/TAM/CIAA would have at least done some checks on other Airbusses, issued technical recommendations and bulletins...
Of course they would if the investigation establishes this as a causal factor.
I think we can easily rule out any other reason than the obvious one. ... I think we can safely argue that the pilots left the TL in CLB detent...
Well, I wouldn't bother applying for any jobs in accident investigation or safety/certification just yet if I were you. Here are a couple of rules:
- One can
rule out possible failure modes on the basis of
evidence only. Otherwise the best you can do is assign relative probabilities (based on past failures/fault trees/circumstantial evidence/engineering judgement etc..) to the different possibilites and maybe end up with a probable cause.
- If a failure mode has not yet occurred, this has no effect on the probability of its happening (a suprisingly common misconception).
My personal feeling from the evidence made public so far is that pilot error/HF is more likely than a linkage failure (based on previous incidents (not limited to Airbus)). The official inquiry must address the possible failures which I identified in post 1982. Hopefully adequate evidence has survived to give an unequivocal answer.
Human factors also apply to maintenance personnel. Split pins have a low (but non-zero) failure rate if they are correctly fitted. Their efficacy is much diminished if they are omitted.
Back to the facts please...
I couldn't agree more.